


Captain Material

by Musely



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Feelings, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musely/pseuds/Musely
Summary: Dex has feelings about captaincy. Nursey helps, which is a shame because Dex has feelings about Nursey too.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 107





	Captain Material

Dex feels more than hears the booming music downstairs in his basement bungalow, the bass shaking the Haus from the foundations to the attic. Louis must have taken liberties with his responsibilities as a DJ for tonight's kegster, ramping the speakers up to 12 which shouldn’t be possible but _Louis_. 

He only hopes the Lax Bros across the street don’t complain or worse, crash the party. 

Dex should join the kegster, should’ve been up there already, but he’s sprawled on his lofted bed, entranced by the award in his hands. “William J. Poindexter,” it reads in big bold letters: solid proof of his appointment as captain for the hockey team.

The responsibility weighs on him already, his worries fraying, splitting into multiple threads that tangle and hobble his feet. He can’t move.

Dex knows that he’s earned every vote that made him captain, but sometimes knowing is different from _knowing._ He still has to wonder: is he really worth those votes? Did they make a mistake somehow? Why did they vote for _him_?

The door opens, derailing his train of thought, sending its cargo containing self-pity and worry astray. He’d have to cobble that back together another time, Dex thinks, as he looks down to find Nursey in the doorway.

Dex can’t help taking a moment to ogle at Nursey: tight pants hugging well-earned thighs, eschewing the usual sweater for a button-up shirt halfway undone, exposing clavicle and chest, with rolled up sleeves to show off his arms. Unfair, Dex thought, that Nursey simply oozed sex appeal without trying.

“What’s up?” Nursey walks in without an invitation, striding across the room, up the ladder, making himself comfortable next to Dex, propping his head up with one hand as he looks down on Dex. “You’re going to hide in here all night staring at that award? Letting the captaincy get to your head already?” Chirp, chirp, chirp. 

For a brief moment, Dex enjoys the warmth next to him. Nursey is wearing some sort of cologne tonight, he can tell. 

“Ah, no--” Dex starts, then pauses. Excuses swirl through his head, ready to spill forth, but Nursey might understand. If he couldn’t trust Nursey with this (Nursey had _voted_ for him after all), then he couldn’t trust him with anything. That wouldn’t be fair to Nursey, of all people, given how close they’d become over the past year.

“Do you really think I can be captain?” Dex asks. “I’m not sure why I got the votes I did. I know I can be a jackass sometimes, I know that much.” Dex sets the award aside. “Even after everything, you still voted for me. Why?”

Nursey looks surprised for a moment, sparking a worry inside Dex. He may have said too much, tension already seeping into his shoulders as he readies to abort the mission, to flee his own room. Getting down the ladder would prove difficult, he thinks, with Nursey in the--

Nursey must be an expert on derailing the unceasing train in his head, because that’s exactly what the kiss did. That errant train of thought tumbles off the tracks as Nursey scoots in closer, deepening the kiss for a moment, then pulls away. 

“You got to chill for a sec, okay?” Nursey says, as he gently massages out some of the stress in his shoulders. “Don’t go calling yourself names. What brought this on?” Nursey actually sounds concerned. Dex opened this can of worms so he has to deal with it, one way or another.  
  
“I’m not sure. I think… with everyone graduating, it just hit me all of the sudden,” Dex confesses. “BItty, Ollie, Wicks: they’re all leaving and now I’m not sure if I’m ready for this. I can’t be a captain like Bitty.”

"You're not Bitty, no matter how much he's taught you about pie… and well, everything else," Nursey whispers, hand coming to rest on Dex’s hip. Dex feels stray fingers thumbing the fringe of exposed skin. “You don’t have to be.”

Dex’s best attempt at a cherry pie may taste like a pale imitation in comparison to anything Bitty took out of the oven, but he loves the work. Kneading the dough, making the filling: it helps him think and not-think at the same time. Working with his hands evokes some measure of tranquility as he lets the dough soak up all the tension in his arms, his shoulders, his chest: perhaps the lesson Bitty wished to impart before graduating.

"You're not Ransom or Holster either," Nursey continues. "Chowder's always said they were ripped straight out of Pacific Rim. One of the reasons they did so well as captains is because they practically shared a brain." 

Dex chuckles in agreement. Yet, Dex wondered about those two... "Do you think they were... y'know." Dex makes a strange, obscure signal with his hand. He’s not even sure what it means.

"Probably," Nursey caught on with a cheeky grin, waggling his eyebrows. "I know they fucked at least once, man."

"Anyways. You're definitely not Jack," Nursey moves his hand from Dex’s hip, upwards under his shirt, ghosting along his ribs until he feels a thumb rubbing over his right nipple. Dex attempts to contain the shudder at the touch, focusing on Nursey's lips instead. He almost misses the chirp when it comes. "You don't have his ass, after all." 

Dex rolls his eyes at the chirp. "You're enough of an ass to serve as a stand-in, Nurse.”

Nursey huffs, his face a brief facade of feigned hurt, before conceding the ruse with a laugh. Dex feels a retaliatory tweak at his nipple and tries to scoot away with a manly squawk of indignation but Nursey holds him firm, tugging him in with an apologetic kiss. 

Dex would allow any apologies Nursey makes, as long they were as sweet as this kiss, tentative and chaste at first, then fervent. They could miss the kegster raging upstairs, he thinks, just trading kisses in the privacy of his manmade basement bungalow. Maybe even test out that jacuzzi he'd installed on a lark.

Nursey pulls back and Dex almost lets loose a plaintive whine at the loss. 

The look on Nursey’s face morphs from a teasing expression to an earnest one, eyebrows drawing together. "You're not Bitty or Ransom or Holster or Jack. You're you." Dex feels fingers pressing down on his shoulder, a gentle but firm grip: Nursey was being serious here and so, Dex listens.

"Don’t think you’re the only jackass here. I assumed so much shit about you from the start,” Nursey looks remorseful for a moment. “But… you fixed up this Haus and you take the time to learn, to do better, to _be_ better," Nursey continues. "This team is better with you in it. That's why you got the votes. That's why I voted for you. You're captain material, whether you believe it or not... but you should." 

If anything, Dex is _floored_. To learn that Nursey paid that much attention to him, to have that much confidence in _him_ … Putting his gratitude into words is difficult, so Dex doesn’t. 

Dex leans in, one hand on Nursey’s cheek gently rubbing against the scruff, and kisses Nursey with as much feeling as he can muster. 

Throughout the past year, Dex let multiple chances to say something, _anything_ , slip through his fingers: it felt like missing pucks that zoomed towards the goal, leaving his nerves fried, his chest tight, ears burning red with shame. How could he bring it up now, with summer break quickly approaching?

Dex didn't want to stop and _talk_ about his feelings, in hopes of saving himself from disappointment and regret. He worked hard to temper the urges to show Nursey how much he really cared to his d-man, his hausmate, his second-best buddy (the top spot, of course, very much reserved for Chowder: no doubt the same for Nursey, which he couldn't, wouldn't begrudge). 

There were countless reasons why Dex felt the way he did about Nursey. 

He could take in the sight of Nursey soaked in sweat after hockey practice and think, _beautiful._

Nursey contained an innate grace for all his klutziness, a breathing, living paradox: his skill with words paralleled his tendency to stumble down the stairs, to trip on the sidewalk, to lose his balance and break his arm just after a hockey game. 

(“Sports injury”, still bullshit.) 

Dex coveted their hard-won friendship, perhaps the most important thing he’s earned since he came to Samwell, even above captaincy: he didn't want to lose the lazy grin Nursey sometimes rewarded him while studying in the library; he didn't want to lose the warmth of the arm clasped around his shoulder as they trudged through the snow across campus; he didn't want to lose the chemistry between them on the ice, wonderfully in sync no matter how often they bickered or argued or fought off the ice. 

They always got their shit together in the end. Even though those arguments have waned over the semesters while their friendship grew closer, more intimate. Intimacy, no matter how much he earned it, it still was more than Dex thought he'd deserved from Nursey. 

Dex had been a total asshole from the start and yet, Nursey kept trying and how could Dex turn that down? They were supposed to be partners.

This friendship upgraded to one with benefits this past semester. He wasn’t sure how that’d started but it took the form of searing kisses traded in the dark, frantic fumbling after practice after everyone had gone from the locker room, and on, and on. Dex would give all those benefits up, and more, to ensure they'd remain friends for as long as possible. He wouldn't, _couldn't_ , risk that for a mere possibility of a relationship. 

They'd never spoken about dating and Dex was afraid to broach that particular subject. 

Sometimes, however, Dex dared to hope, foolish as one of Nursey's sappy poems. No stanza, no iambic pentameter (whatever that was) could capture the depth, the breadth of his feelings for Nursey. How could he even begin to tell Nursey that much?

Dex only has his hands, rough with hard work of summers gone by, to show how much he cares. HIs tongue would fumble any confession he has to make, so he fixes up that dilapidated corner of the porch so it doesn’t collapse under the weight of another kegster. He puts the fear of the almighty in the dryer that churned with the screams of hell when turned on. He keeps Betsy from the brink of death long enough for a successor to carry on its life-long burden.

When Nursey’s laptop whirs feebly, summoning a blue screen of death, Dex is there pulling it apart and putting it back together better than before. After Dex saves an important assignment from disappearing into the ether, Nursey drags him down to Annie’s for coffee, shoulders rubbing all the way. Dex’s fingers brush against Nursey’s as he takes the warm cup as his reward. 

Dex hunts for gratitude in the eyes of his teammates, soaks in the warmth of their hugs. Bumping shoulders, tapping fists together, is a language that he can speak fluently. 

Dex knows Nursey may need more than that, He knows he should try anyway.

Dex focuses on the scruff under his fingers, the warm hand resting at the nape of his neck, as he kisses the hell out of Nursey.

‘ _Captain material._ ’ 

That's what Nursey said. How can a captain continue to watch pucks careen towards the goal and do nothing about it? They only had one year left at Samwell. Could Dex really waste another year of chances and leave Samwell with regrets?

Fuck.

He pulls back. "Nu--, Derek." Dex already feels tingling in his spine, nerves on fire, a rising urge to give in, to just make out with this beautiful boy currently stretched out on his bed. Derek looks at him with a curious stare, clearly wondering why they’d stopped. 

“Do you want to date me?” Dex’s tongue does not betray him after all. 

Dex feels his heartbeat outpace the bass shaking the bungalow, rapidly increasing in tempo, as he wonders if he’d fucked up after all. His cheeks already feel hot with embarrassment as he attempts to come up with words: a feeble attempt to play it off, to take it back, to do anything but writhe in torment.

Finally, Nursey responds with a wide grin. “Dude, I’ve been waiting forever for you to say something.” 

Dex’s heart skips a beat. “You have?” 

“Chyeah. Guess you’re not just captain material after all.” Nursey’s grin grows even wider, bordering on impossibility. “You’re boyfriend material.”  
  
Dex groans and buries his face into Nursey’s neck, so he wouldn’t see the relieved smile forming on his face. “You fucking dork. You’re such a fucking sap.” 

Nursey just laughs and holds him closer.

Boyfriend material. Dex likes the sound of that. He lifts his head up and leans in to show Nursey just how much.

**Author's Note:**

> I have not really written fanfiction in over a decade, since Harry Potter fandom was a wild thing still thriving on LiveJournal. I was in high school at the time, dumb and naive to the ways of writing fanfic. (I'm still dumb and naive at least) That's forever ago in internet years so I'm relearning as I go. I could let this spend an eternity in the editing hell that is Google Docs but I have to start somewhere. 
> 
> This is set sometime between when Dex wins the captaincy and graduation. Hopefully somewhere in there is time for one last kegster. If not, oh well.
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr.](https://musinglymuse.tumblr.com/) There's only recommendation lists there for now, while I soak in what the fandom has to offer. Maybe there'll be more.


End file.
